Romney and “Conservative Doctrine”

That vivid phrase, “doom loop” gets the headline—and nicely obscures the way in which Romney has otherwise popped open the escape hatches from conservative doctrine.

“There is also a recognition in this country” nicely elides the question whether Romney himself believes in any parallel between America’s situation and those of Greece, Spain, and Italy.

The “conceivably” is an elegant extra-distancing touch. A lot of things are conceivable, including many things that are impossible.

I admit that I don’t understand support for a candidate based on the assumption that he is a slippery weasel unwilling to state publicly his own views on important issues. Here Frum is arguing that Romney is thoroughly disingenuous and engages in deceptive wordplay, and he describes this as Romney’s “leadership secret.” Scott Galupo is almost certainly right about how Mitt Romney would govern if elected, but I have to think that moderate and reformist Republicans are deluding themselves into believing that Romney secretly agrees with them in spite of everything he has said during the campaign. This is reminiscent of the persistent efforts of some foreign policy realists and moderate Republicans to ignore the content of Jon Huntsman’s policy proposals, which were antithetical to most of what most of his admirers claimed to want, and to pay attention only to his temperament and personality.

For what it’s worth, this gives Romney too much credit for cleverness and too little for staying on message. One of Romney’s regular themes is that he is opposing Obama’s efforts to make America more “European,” by which I believe he means an America with a larger welfare state. Romney has made the comparison with Greece explicit on several occasions:

On Hannity, in a repeat of an earlier comment that’s looking to become a signature Romney campaign line, the former Massachusetts governor tied Obama’s policies to those of the Greek government, suggesting that America’s growing debt is driving the country towards a Greek-style bailout [bold mine-DL].

“We are moving toward the Greek-type numbers. My guess is at the Democratic convention, [Obama] will not be appearing in front of columns like in Denver. He won’t want to remind people of Greece,” Romney said.

There doesn’t seem to be any “escape hatch” here. Romney may or may not believe that the comparison with Greece is valid, but he seems to be doing everything possible to associate himself with that idea.

Might not the simple answer here be that Romney is practicing a form of Socratic irony? I know TAC isn’t a Strauss fan, but there’s something to be said for saying different things to different audiences.

Frum is more concerned that Romney accepts the neoconservative doctrine of undeclared, pre-emptive wars and America’s reshaping of the world in her image more than he’s concerned about what Romney believes about the economy. Romney is a true believer in the doctrine of American Exceptionalism, and he has stated as much time and time again. It’s why the establishment wants him.

“I admit that I don’t understand support for a candidate based on the
assumption that he is a slippery weasel unwilling to state publicly his
own views on important issues.”

Denial. Simple human denial.

We’d all really like to believe that the primary representative of the party we support (be it GOP or Dem.) is going to enact our desired policy goals and is simply telling everyone else what they want to hear to fool them into electing them, at which point, they’ll do what we want them to do (and what we presume they secretly want to do.)

The other equally cynical answer is that we’re so used to our politicians lying to us that we no longer believe anything that comes out of their mouths and instead of being shocked and appalled into action by that, our minds have turned our politicians in ciphers for our own political desires.